Identifying preventable readmissions: an achievable goal or waiting for Godot?

Hospital readmission rates have captured the attention of policymakers, administrators, researchers and healthcare providers over the last decade. This has been spurred in no small part by the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, which began in the USA in 2012 and requires the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reduce payments to acute care facilities with high rates of readmission within 30 days of discharge for selected conditions. After years of intense research to find an objective measure of preventable readmissions, it seems as imminent as the arrival of Godot. Whether preventable readmissions can be objectively defined or represent a valid patient-centred measure of quality are unclear. While the search continues for validated and objective measures of readmission, emerging commercial software programs using administrative data to flag potentially preventable readmissions (PPRs) are marketed as a solution to labour-intensive chart review. One example is the 3M Potentially Preventable Readmissions Grouping Software,...

Source: Quality and Safety in Health Care - November 19, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Soong, C., Bell, C. Tags: Press releases Editorials Source Type: research